Spaces for Ideas: The Brand

If you have not already, do check out the earlier posts first as they will give you a greater insight on how this design came to be.
1) Spaces for Ideas: The Beginning
2) Spaces for Ideas: The First Prototype
It is time for a long overdue update on my Spaces for Ideas Project. This time I like to share with you the brand that I am building for this product. I have always been a strong supporter of branding and this time around it is no different. Understanding the value of branding, motivated me to create a log that could communicate instantly what Spaces for Ideas was all about.
I started out speaking to a few graphic designers and branding houses, but due to cost issues and not having full clarity what I wanted, I decided to put the money into my product and carved out some time to really thinking about this brand. If I did not know what I wanted, budget was likely going to be wasted. However as I got deeper into it, I realized I was enjoying the process, and decided to take it all the way to the end.
So without further adieu please have a look at my brand development process after the jump. (Warning picture heavy, but image size managed). Oh by the way, I’m no typographer, so I would love to hear your feedback and ways I can improve the final design.
I started out with an objective of creating both a brand name and a brand icon. I saw naming and logo creation, as a combined activity as there was a chance that the name itself could become a logo. As with all of my design development activities, I often approach it from a commercial angle by establishing a marketing tagline or elevator pitch as part of my design brief. This gives me a good idea of what this logo or product has to stand for. (Top right)
I also like to anchor some basic descriptor keywords in my brief to further flesh out the design direction for the brand. I wanted Spaces for Ideas to be simple, clean, minimal (reflecting the product’s industrial design) and not look like the typical web 2.0 “chicklet”. I also wanted it to have, what I like to call, the “Fedex Arrow Effect”. This logo had to represent what the product stood for in a clever and but almost cheeky way. Before I forget, I also had to consider my functional constraints. This logo also has to be able to be de-bossed as well as fit the usual range marketing collaterals like name cards, with compliments slips etc.
After settling with “Spaces for Ideas” as a brand name I started to look at how the logo icon can succinctly represent that brand name. As you can see, some of my initial ideas stylizing how the sketchbook worked.

I took the most obvious route with this logo design. I needed to somehow represent a “space” with an icon. Easier said than done. A space is essentially that, a void filled with air. Taking up the challenge, I explored some ideas, where I cut up some font lines and used a human’s ability of “closure” to fill in the blanks. I soon settled on a concept that uses the interplay between positive and negative space.

I quickly mocked up the concept in Illustrator to see how it would look like in a controlled manner. I did like the paint lines very much, but this is not a design that is going to work de-bossed.

I realize, after playing around in Illustrator for a bit, I was stuck at a dead end. Also illustrator was not a program for me to design easily in, so back to the drawing board or sketchbook for that matter.

I continued to explore the meaning of “Space” with known representations like mountains and hills. Unfortunately all the concepts still lack the impact I desired.

Hey an empty box is a “space” to put stuff in right? I seriously considered using perspective lines to mark out a “space” before an object is drawn into it.

More box inspired concepts, this time with the words to represent lines. Ugly.

Even more boxes. I’m really struggling here!

I even experimented to cutting words horizontally in half. People only read the top half of the words anyway. Still this concept did not give me that Fedex effect I wanted.

I need to break out of this box thing. So I started to brainstorm other representations. A good one that I liked was how empty space was created between a bookshelf. (Bottom left) So Space is created between things. However, if I articulated a bookshelf as my logo would be just amateur work as it has little relation to my product. However liking the bookshelf concept very much, I parked the idea in the back of my mind and continued to explore.

As you can see, I’m still struggling to break away from boxes. I thought these box hole concepts might do the trick, but a box icon was a pretty common thing to find in logos. (I did some online research on the number of logos that had a box in it, and it was a lot!) Overall it’s still not good enough.

I finally realize that it might be near impossible to create a logo icon to represent “space”. So I went back to the tried and proven: Typography logos. That is when it hit me; the Bookshelf concept combined with typography produced a word with each letters representing a book.
I knew I finally got it. As with most solutions in design, you just know when you got it.

I wrapped up the concept phase by creating a definitive sketch of the design. This is something I also always do, as it catalogues one clear sketch to represent the concept or idea. Always as a precaution, it is also always a good idea to list the keywords from your design brief to make sure that the final logo matches your design objectives.

Time to select some fonts with the help of my keywords in my design brief. Also, I like to quickly thank a number of you who recommended font sites to visit on my Twitter stream.

I continued the refinement by picking a font and explored some placements. Slotting text in between other text has potential readability issues. So I really need to make sure I refine this direction well.

I selected the best potential arrangements and applied them 3 fonts that I short-listed.

So late one night, at 2.55am, I jumped out of bed with a solution to what I think is the best arrangement. This final layout (above) naturally aligns to how people read. “Spaces” is read left to right, and then “for ideas” read from top to bottom. If you notice, I went with a much cleaner font, even though I like to the first one I used that had “spaces” on each character. I felt that made the font look too busy and complicated.
All in all, I really enjoyed this brand creation process, and I hope you did to. I find it interesting, how much I could apply some of my Industrial Design methodologies, such as looking for insights to the natural behavior and expectations of people, to this logo exercise. I think understanding your process and the application of methodologies are key to success of any design, not just a logo design. Finally, as mentioned in the beginning of this post, look forward to hearing your comments and feedback.Edit 2: Check out the final installment of this project, Spaces for Ideas: The Final Prototype.

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14 Comments

Chad V

Looking good, thanks for sharing this process. It’s really interesting and given me a good insight into the industry. One thing about the logo is when I first read it I couldn’t tell what it said right away when it was a bigger size. The last version in the post I could read no problem so maybe some more separation between the SPACES and for? Other than that great work!

Chris

The sketchpad is what I usually use also. its just eh quickest way to get your ideas out. I really enjoyed seeing this process hashed out. And as @Chad V said, it gives good insight into the industry. As far as letter vs icon/symbol Typographic logos are just more effective and more common in my opinion, and for your brand you seemed to hit the nail on the head. Personally I prefer the gray to the black, it just pleases my eye more, but that’s just me. Overall I think it turned out great, and way to maximize your budget. Looking forward to more.

Thank you for taking the time to post the process here. It’s really great to see something in the making. I do like the positive / negative play. But clean look works well as well. Hope to see the final product soon!

b

I like the logo, and it was beautiful watching the process.
There is something about the spaces between the letters of “spaces” that I think I would like to try. As it is now, it looks to me a little bit as if the letters “Ss” are “boxing” the word “pace” (continuing with the boxing idea you brought from the process). If I were you I would check the distances between the letters, or maby it’s just the feeling that the C and the E are more separate than the others.
Well, sorry, I’m being a little bit obsessive! But the logo works for me! congratulations.

I love your blog and enjoy seeing how you are incorporating the brand essence into the development of the product. However, I think you are missing the main a point that is core to your brand. That is to say, all sketchbooks are spaces for ideas, yours is distinct in that it enables there to be more space, for bigger ideas so to speak. It unfolds into more, it expands, lets the arm move. Perhaps these (or similar qualities) a should be more central to your brand.
The expansive nature of your project makes me think of names that better describe what it is. For example:
-unfoldio
-space mat
-expandepad
-sketchplus (sketch+)
-less is more / less becomes more (more like a tagline?)
To one first approaching your sketchbook on a shelf next to a moleskin, how does the name “Space for Ideas” tell that it unfolds? It seems that this added ability is what needs to be communicated at first glance and would make me reach for your sketchbook over others.
Keep going! I love the idea!
Ss
PS: I want one…

Travis

Loving watching the process of this, and I like the direction as well. I do have to agree with b, as it looks like PACE is being frames by an S on both sides. If the spacing is the same, then I suggest you adjust the kerning until it looks natural (it’s something a typographer has to do every day).
I’m looking forward to the end product.

billy

I love the idea, and thank you for sharing your process! I’m actually doing a similar excercise at the moment for a product I’m developing. Just wondering if you considered changing to something shorter, like “Idea Spaces”? (the “for” feels a little bit extra to me.) This might offer more room to play with your logo concept… 😉

Hi All,
Thanks so much for the feedback! Just on a side note, I’m not a professional graphic design or a typographer. I’m an Industrial Designer. So sorry if it looks like I’m in the industry, I’m not, and please also excuse the imperfections. My typographic eye is not fully “trained!”@chad v, @chris, @shang lee, @clayton, @travis – Thanks for your kind feedback and please keep in touch?@b – Thank you for the critique! You are quite right. I think it could also be that the width of each character is quite different. I may go with one of the other directions where each character is of equal width. Back to the drawing board for more tweaking this weekend.@S Samuels – Steven, thanks for the feedback and great suggestions in names. I’m loving Unfoldio, can I use it? Oh one more thing though, Spaces of Ideas is not a brand for this book in particular, it is a brand for a range of sketchbook and notebook products I am developing. I have in the works about 5 different designs for this brand. However I’ll might use Unfoldio as a descriptor for this specific sketchbook. If I do, I’ll send you a free sketchbook! 🙂
@billy – Thanks for that suggestion, I’ll think about it this weekend when I’m tweaking the logo!

Always love to see the process.
Even if the brand logo it’s not directly related to the product, the idea to illustrate space using letterspace is great!
Reading “unfoldio”, I saw “dio” (not far from “dia”, day in Spanish)-> diary, and thought “unfoldiary”, or other unfold+”d-thing” name…
Looking forward to see the complete range 🙂

Hey D.T.
Great process! I love the final image you arrived at. I do agree with some of the critiques above, but not necessarily with the solutions presented. I went ahead and wrote a critique over on my blog so you could look at the result visually:http://bit.ly/dk68st
Hopefully this is useful 🙂
(Looks like your blog auto-picked the post as an incoming link. Cool!)
Cheers!
-Kevin

jeffery B.

Uh, just so you know, even though you’re a bit past the survey, research, discovery and data collection portion of the design process -Moleskine has long made a pocket sketch line of notebooks with extremely thick pages (80 pages at the same thickness as the normal 192 pages). I even sometimes use felt tips and they don’t bleed through, where if I did the same with the thin, flimsy 192 page moleskine, felt tip would have probably bled straight through 5 pages.)

I love the idea. Nice to see the process of making. Why don’t you create some contrast between the foreground and background letters to create differences. May be it will look more impressive.
Love the concept. Thanks for sharing.